Original Barnie's on Park Avenue remodeled

Barnie’s CoffeeKitchen is located at 118 S. Park Ave., in Winter Park. For more information on the Barnie’s re-branding visit www.barniescoffeekitchen.com

Barnie’s Coffee has come a long way since its inaugural store opened on Park Avenue in downtown Winter Park nearly 30 years ago.

To celebrate the anniversary, the chain has launched a company-wide re-branding as Barnie’s Coffee Kitchens, starting with their original Park Avenue location.

“Winter Park is a special place,” CEO Jonathan Smiga said. “We’re trying to give them the coffee experience they deserve.”

After a week’s worth of soft openings, the remodeled location is now open to the public. With added seating, a micro-roasting station and a more “kitchen” feel, the Park Avenue remodel will serve as a template for the entire Florida chain’s re-branding that will take place at all locations in the upcoming year.

New brand, new look

Walking into the remodeled location, Smiga says he hopes people will realize that coming into a Barnie’s Coffee Kitchen is about more than just the coffee. It’s an overall experience.

With walls the color of fresh unroasted coffee beans and floors the rich brown of espresso, the original store has gotten a makeover in both look and function with 26 seats inside and 45 outside, Smiga said. The first things patrons will notice — aside from the décor — is the addition of a micro-roasting station where trained coffee roasters will be roasting up to 50 pounds of fresh coffee beans a day.

“Roasting coffee is a lot like baking bread,” Smiga said. “This will be a lot like going out and getting a fresh loaf of bread where you can take it right home and eat it.”

The fresh-roasted and packaged beans will be on sale for anywhere from $13 to $70 depending on the rarity of the bean. In roughly 18 minutes, customers can watch as beans go into the roaster green, come out brown and are packaged and sealed, ready to take home.

“In addition to seeing it roasted, people will know the farm and origin of their coffee from its label, from where it was harvested to the name of the roaster,” he said.

In addition to selling the fresh coffee, pre-packaged roasts and the typical to-go coffee mugs, the location has a corner dedicated to selling fair-trade items produced by people from coffee-producing countries, ranging from jewelry to bags.

This all adds to the new Barnie’s Coffee Kitchen social coffee experience, Smiga said, by initiating conversations and customer relationships.

New brew

Once patrons reach the counter, Smiga said, it’s his goal that they’ll no longer be satisfied with ordering just a house blend cup of coffee, and will instead be enticed by the selection of more than 50 different blends.

“If you went to a wine tasting and they just offered you red or white, or a bar with only one beer on tap, you wouldn’t have it,” he said. “With coffee, we’ve gotten lazy. We want this to be equivalent to a coffee wine bar.”

An array of grab-and-go food options, as well as sit-down options for both breakfast and lunch/dinner, are also available. Every dish, Smiga said, is made with quality in mind, using organic and high-grade products.

This extra effort and attention, Smiga said, was paid to help Barnie’s stand apart from their competition, with a Panera Bread and Starbucks located on either end of the Avenue.

“Our job is to be more interesting than them,” he said.

With the Park Avenue location being the only Barnie’s in the immediate Winter Park/Maitland area — and with other cafes in Altamonte Springs, Waterford Lakes, Dr. Phillips and Baldwin Park — Smiga said planning the remodel meant he needed to make people want to go out of their way to visit the shop.

“We have to be worth the detour,” he said. “We had to make it worth the trip.”

On the store’s first full day of business open to the public, Monday, Nov. 7, he said the store did double the amount of business than on a typical Monday prior to the remodel, an upswing he hopes will continue into the future even once the newness rubs off.